The personal, as every one’s so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, TAKE IT PERSONALL...
The human eye is a wonderful device, I quoted from Poems and Other Prevarications absently. With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.
The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here—it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide out from...
That’s right, Dragonbane. And brothers always stood together, the buffalo came when they were called, the grass grew taller and greener, and it never fucking rained. Get a grip, old man.
That's your solution?' asked Wardani in a small, cold voice. 'Take drugs and watch it all slide out of view?''Do you have a better idea?' She turned away.
Rumor ran in the slum streets of Trelayne like sewage in the gutters, mingled and colorful in its contents, but mostly shit.
Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s...
My gaze slipped out past the breakers. The ocean beyond was black and secret, merging seamlessly with the night a scant distance out from the shore. Even the massive bulk of the keeled-over Free Trade...
Knowledge tossed away, she said, shivering a little in the desert chill. Willful ignorance in the face of something we might have to work to understand. At
He is as corrupt as the rest of them. As all the materialists.’ ‘Yeah, but give him his due. If his daughter ever gets raped, he’s unlikely to beat her to death for dishonouring him.’ She flinched. ‘Y...
From a legal point of view— He shook his head. Forget the law. It isn’t going to help. They’ll cite it where it suits them, ignore it where it doesn’t. They’re clerics, Archeth. They spend their whole...
First the hypnos, pulsing their sonocodes until the dull gray ceiling grew abruptly fascinating with fishtail swirls of light, and meaning drained out of the universe like dirty water from a sink. And...
Drunk one night, Sarah had told me Women are the race, Tak. No two ways about it. Male is just a mutation with more muscle and half the nerves. Fighting, fucking machines. My own cross-sleevings had b...
Can’t fucking believe it’s come to this, it muttered. Negotiating with a fucking herdsman — you know, sometimes it’s — listen, I was the thief of once, you goat-shagging thug. You know that? The fuck...
But this was worse than personal. This was about Louise, alias Anemone, cut up on a surgical platter, about Elizabeth Elliott stabbed to death and too poor to be resleeved, Irene Elliott, weeping for...
Anyone who builds satellites we can’t shoot down needs to be taken seriously and, if they ever come back for their hardware, be approached with caution. That’s not religion, it’s common sense. Quellcr...
Any synthetic intelligence can be independent only within the boundaries of the U.N. regulatory charter. The charter is hardwired into my systems, so in effect I have as much to fear from the police a...
Angels and demons, heaven and hell, god, morality, law and language. Sutherland’s right, it’s all metaphor. Scaffolding to handle the areas where base reality won’t cut it for you guys, where it’s too...
According to the psychosurgeons, we act more in keeping with our true selves in a dream than in any other situation, including the throes of orgasm and the moment of our deaths. Maybe that explains wh...
A weapon—any weapon—is a tool, she told us. Cradled in her arms was a Sunjet particle gun. Designed for a specific purpose, just as any tool is, and only useful in that purpose. You would think a man...